I Will Not "Work Together" with an anti-American Regime to Ruin the America I Love

I can't claim to have written this, but I agee with it and want to help share it as widely as I can. Please share it on your social media or Web site. This version was online in spring 2025.

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I will not be drawn into debate over this post. I am aware of the arguments of people who disagree with the statements below. I am posting this for all those who may be living in fear in this moment so you know you are not alone.

I want to share this piece in solidarity:

This is where I stand. The 45/47th President, his power hungry cronies taking positions of authority in his Cabinet and administration, and the majority of Republicans in Congress are a real and active threat to me, my way of life, and all or most of the people I love.

Some people are saying that we should give Trump a chance, that we should "work together" with him because he won the election and he is "everyone's president." This is my response:

• I will not forget how badly he and so many others treated former President Barack Obama for 8 years and Biden cleaning up his mess...Lies about his legitimacy and hatred for his principles and his attempts to work within the system.
• I will not "work together" to privatize Medicare, cut Social Security and Medicaid.
• I will not "work together" to subvert the Constitution by illegitimately pushing unfit Cabinet nominees through on recess appointments without the advice and consent of the Senate.
• I will not "work together" to persecute Muslims.
• I will not "work together" to shut out refugees from other countries who seek asylum.
• I will not "work together" to lower taxes on the 1% and increase taxes on the middle class and poor.
• I will not "work together" to help Trump use the Presidency to line his pockets and those of his family and cronies.
• I will not "work together" to weaken and demolish environmental protection.
• I will not "work together" to sell American lands, especially National Parks, to companies which then despoil those lands.
• I will not "work together" to enable the killing of whole species of animals just because they are predators, or inconvenient for a few, or because some people want to get their thrills killing them.
• I will not "work together" to remove civil rights from anyone.
• I will not "work together" to alienate countries that have been our allies for as long as I have been alive.
• I will not "work together" to slash funding for education.
• I will not "work together" to take basic assistance from people who are at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder.
• I will not "work together" to get rid of common sense regulations on guns.
• I will not "work together" to eliminate the minimum wage.
• I will not "work together" to support so-called "Right To Work" laws, or undermine, weaken or destroy Unions in any way.
• I will not "work together" to suppress scientific research, be it on climate change, fracking, or any other issue where a majority of scientists agree that Trump and his supporters are wrong on the facts.
• I will not "work together" to criminalize abortion or restrict health care for women.
• I will not "work together" to increase the number of nations that have nuclear weapons.
• I will not "work together" to put even more "big money" into politics.
• I will not "work together" to violate the Geneva Convention.
• I will not "work together" to give the Ku Klux Klan, the Nazi Party and white supremacists a seat at the table, or to normalize their hatred.
• I will not "work together" to deny health care to people who need it.
• I will not "work together" to deny medical coverage to people on the basis of a "pre-existing condition."
• I will not "work together" to increase voter suppression.
• I will not "work together" to normalize tyranny.
• I will not “work together” to eliminate or reduce ethical oversight at any level of government.
• I will not "work together" with anyone who is, or admires, tyrants and dictators.
• I will not support anyone that thinks it's OK to put a pipeline to transport oil on Sacred Ground for Native Americans.
• I will not "work together" to legitimize racism, sexism, and authoritarianism.

This is my line, and I am drawing it:

• I WILL stand for honesty, love, respect for all living beings, and for the beating heart that is the center of Life itself.
• I WILL use my voice and my hands, to reach out to the uninformed, and to anyone who will LISTEN:

That "winning", "being great again", "rich" or even "beautiful" is nothing... When others are sacrificed to glorify its existence.

Signed

Laurie Mann
Selina Lovett
Jonathan M Goldblith
Tom Cantrell
Jim Leach
Robert Sachs
Debi Feinman
Mary Virginia Burks
Kathey Golightly Sanders
Marc Murphy
Ricky L Jones
Ralph de Chabert
Kevin Carter
Carita Weaver Hardy
Ann Christopher
Buddy Luce
Gina Fant-Simon
Shari Fant-Simon
Betsy Pugh
Gwen Longbotham
Linda Dennis
Christine Mortine
Mechteld Mitchin
Stephanie B Sajjadieh
Lance Collier
Melanie Knadler
Fern Wilcox
Ellen Olson
Jeri Rockwell
Jerrianne Hayslett
Dana Bottorff
Ellie Kantrovitz Chella
Susan Green Gotshalk
Jeff Cribbs
Bill Nelson
Joe Borzelleca
Mara Dinsmoor
Anne Barschall
Ellen Flaks
Lenora Eve
Brian Kesselring
Steve Greene
Heather Gray 🦹‍♀️
Mae Wright
Patricia Sikelianos
Livia Zirkel
Tara O’Reilly
John Wullbrandt
Ariel Jones
Ben Bowen
Judy Reed
Jeremy Parker
Randy Caldwell
Kelly Gilmore
Janice Wise
Dr. Christopher Eaton
Kathleen Farrell
Rosa M. Bender
Robert Corsini
Grace Roberts Dyrness
Ruth Padilla DeBorst
Pedro J. Windsor-Garcia
Lori Keller Burns
Kathleen Steele Pautler
Thomas Nemmer
Beth Licata Cooke
Erin Selig
Joseph Fell
Donna Berry
Sandy Hoffman Nelson
Karen Fishlock Miliotto
Craig Wright
Andy Tamarin
Denise Malone
Gloria Konsler
Debbie Pye
Lisa Behm
Alison Donley
Brenda Voshell McNeil
Bunnie Bryant
Bishop Karen Oliveto
Judy Fjell
Karen S Ripley
Cate Larsen
Brinda Arias Moffitt
Charlotte Xanders
Cayce Wallace
Natalie Cortez
Jerry Perry
Lisa Travers
Jonathan Woodward
Linda Carlos
Sally Mitchell
Valerie Richie
Betsy Nickerson
Nancy Nickerson
Wes Melton
Rhys Lovell
Carol Koos
Cristina Ortega
Daniella Barroqueiro
Gilford Moore
Diane Lathrop
Bill Vance
Joanne R. Clayton
Timothy Vantran
Kelcy M. Allwein
Frank J. Stech
Virginia Segal Manczuk
Evelina Kahn
Judi Gardner
Steve Burby
Rich Buley-Neumar
Scott Frazier-Maskiell
Matt Bonham
Maida Belove
Christie Trout
Terri Gherardi
Jo Campbell-Amsler
Kim William Jones
Kevin Anderson
DoctorCindy Anderson
Tom Zimmerman
Shorty Palmer
Chuck Cogliandro
Karen Branan
Nancy Alexander
Lynn Beard Wright
Barbara Clawson
Jean Achtermann
Susan Warrener Smith
Sydney V. ‘Skip’ Jackson
David L Fisk
Brian Timko
Leslie Barroso
Phillip Belfiori
Stevens Loomis
Rosemary Bernardi
Liz Willis
Carol Morando 🙏🏼
Kara Au-Young
Patricia McCarley
Dell Schilleci
Marcus Berardino
Elaine O'Brien
Franklin Mount
Kate Maxwell
Mark Plesent
Cori Thomas
Sibyl Kempson
Eric Dyer
Daniel Kwiatkowski
Abby Lee
Joe Harrell
Chris Benfante
Theresa Benfante
Diane Lesley
Andrea Fiondo
Kathrine Iacofano
Susan Goldberg
Debbie Slavkin
Linda Rosefsky
Rebecca Tortorice
Anna Konya
Karen Redding
Wendy Lemlin
Patricia Rollins Trosclair
Andrea Dora Zysk
George Georgakis
John Christopher
John Bowles
Patrick St.Louis
Carla Patrick
Darnell Bender
Vickie Davis
JMichael Carter
Janice Frazier-Scott
Rev. ELaura James Reid
Jeanette Bouknight
Rev. Dollie Howell Pankey
Gerald Butler
Carolyn McDougle
Vaughn Chatman
Adrienne Brown
Gary Trousdale
Steven E Gordon
Isis Nocturne
Debi Murray
Maureen O. Betita
Mona Enderli
Fernie James Tamblin
Myrna Dodgion
Alan Locklear
Tom Wilmore
Jackie Evans
Donna Endres
Lora Fountain
Roberta Gregory
Heather A Mayhew
Stevo Wehr
Nathan Stivers
Jen RaLee
Joan Holden
Leigh Lutz
Deborah Kirkpatrick
Linda Levy
Tom Rue
Nancy Hoffmann-Allison
Beejay McCabe
Michael James Myers
Edward T. Spire
Rupert Chapman
Dawn R. Dunbar
Robin Wilson
Monique Boutot
Laura Brown 💪🏼
Susan Aptaker
Steve Katz
Bonnie Wolk
Risa Guttman-Kornwitz
Angela Gora
Butch Norman
Sharon Tolman
Sue Zislis
Maurice Hirsch
Satch Dobrey
Jim Krapf
Don Starwalt
Deb Johansen
Daniel Anderson
Diane Kenney
Rebecca Koop
Nancy Shuert
Bill Pryor
Patrick Lamb
Bob Travaglione
Margaret Ragan
Martha Peters
Steve Wilson
Lauren Sullivan
Scott Bevan
Roger Saunden
Susanne Lavelle
Benita Yimsuan
Kathryn Scarano
Kathleen E Neff
Evey G Quines
Debbie Dey
John Dennehy, Jr.
Marsha Vaughn
Adam Sklena
Larry David McGregor Blumenthal
Gustavo Rodriguez
ARJ Alva Freeman
Yvette Ellard
Rory Thayer Wilson
Wayne Booth
Streven King
Phyllis Vlach Adrian
Sandy Miller Castellano
Nick Strippoli
Ben Papapietro
Renae Perry
Isaac Gabaeff
Katherine Anne O'Shea
Brian R. Quattrini
Tammy Long
Jeffrey Murray
Robin Schempp
Laura Schimoler Reed
Kenn Marash
Betsy Joyce
Peg Rees Smith
Skip Bushby.
Nancy Winne
Georgia Cosgrove
Jeff Turley
Mary Ann McDonnell
Jim O,Connor
Johan Vastiau
Wil Tucker
Michael Wright
Chris Keogan
Sean Meyer
Carol Wallack
Jim Senhauser
Sandra D. Marshall
Karen Topin
Joan Pikas
Barbara Engel
Credell Walls
Marla Renee
Michele Jones
Angela Hollis
Charlotte House
Ryan Sims
Joyce Arcala Sims
Diane Dixon-Scott
Audrey Hamilton
Terry Archibald Reed
Joan Barrett
Cookie Hood
Jane Hunt-McCaulla
Jim Henry
Laurie Carmichael
Karen Sieradski
Debi Stella
Dana Daugherty
Bill Vance
Becky Coduto
Jorge L. Morales
Leo Harold Lee Jr (Buddy)

Now it is your turn. Copy, paste, and add your name to the top. This needs to be heard loud and clear.

Will Republican Voters Ever Understand?

I wish there was a way to make Republican voters understand that Republicans in Congress are not fulfilling their oaths of office. All government employees take an oath stating that they are to defend America against all enemies, foreign or domestic.

We currently have hundreds of people in the Executive Branch who are literally domestic terrorists. They are behaving in ways that are contrary to both the Constitution and federal law. They are behaving in ways that will literally kill sick Americans and discourage vaccinations which will kill more people. They are behaving in ways that will send thousands more Americans into the streets. They are behaving in ways that can deny jobs to women and minorities. Some members of the Executive Branch have stood up to the domestic terrorists, refusing to help them and some have resigned.

Some member of the Judicial Branch have stood up to Trump's lawbreaking, but they haven't made him accept any consequences. For example, the funds allocated to USAID were recently ruled that they must be spent as Congress decided they should be spent. And yet - Trump isn't releasing the funds.

A pity Republicans in Congress are so impotent that they won't stand up to obvious domestic terrorists. A pity Democrats in Congress couldn't be more organized in their protests against the Executive Branch.

Be Sure to Write to Your Rep/Senators About the SAVE Act (if you want to vote in the future)

The SAVE Act is "disguised" as a way to help keep non-citizens from voting. In reality, it's a way to deny the right to vote to trans people and most women. If you'd read Project 2025 last year, you'd know Republicans wanted to do anything they could possibly do to restrict many people from voting.

But they are particularly going after women and trans people by requiring the name on your voter registration to match the name on your birth certificate.

My husband and I married in 1977 and we spent much of our engagement year figuring out what last name to take. We had mixed feelings about hyphenated names and even thought about creating a new name. But, after long discussion, I decided to take his last name (but never, ever his first name).

I will return to my birth name in a second (though I know it will take longer than that) if the SAVE Act passes the Senate and is signed by Trump. No regime will deny me my right to vote.

It's already been passed by a House committee, so it's on the way to the House and Senate.

WRITE TO YOUR REPRESENTATIVE/SENATORS OR NOW!!

Here's what I wrote to Senator McCormick (and a similar letter to Senator Fetterman, but with a different last paragraph):

 

I am disgusted (but not surprised) that the House passed the Save Act which would take away the voting rights of millions of people (especially women since so many married women took their husband's last names).

While I took my husband's last name when we married in 1977 (by choice - we preferred to have a joint family name), he knows I will revert to my birth last name in a second should the Senate also pass the SAVE Act.

Please show that at least one Republican cares about voting rights. I haven't seen one support voting rights in a very long time.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I'm sorry that my original posting was somewhat incorrect and appreciate that a woman at a local Democratic Committee Meeting gave me a correction that it hadn't passed the House yet. And I will write to my Reprentative, Summer Lee, even though I'm sure she'd never vote for it.

The Readers Digest Condensed Version of "What I Did on My Summer Vacation"

I wrote this for Samantha Brown’s travel group on Facebook:

We had an often wet but wonderful 3 weeks in Scotland & northern England this summer.

Took a bus trip to northwestern Scotland and the Isle of Skye. Saw the Kilt Cliffs on a sunny day. Found a family marker at Culloden Field & learned one of my Scottish ancestors was a Jacobite.

Attended a conference in Glasgow where we went to fabulous restaurants including Ubiquitous Chip, The Buttery, Mother India & the Butcher Shop. Drove to northern England with friends where we visited Hadrian’s Wall, the Beamish Open Air Museum & Durham Cathedral & stayed for 3 nights in a stone barn that had been converted to a cottage.

Went to the Lake District & spent two nights in a lovely B&B in Windemere. Took a boat ride in a restored wooden boat & got amazing gingerbread in Grasmere.

Returned to Glasgow, found Sloan’s, a pub that’s been open since 1797. Took the Hop On/Hop Off bus & got off at Glasgow Cathedral & the fascinating Kelvingrove Museum.

So while the trip was fantastic, getting there and back again was pretty miserable. Both British Airways & Heathrow Airport are at the very top of our “Never Again” list.

Movie Review: Firebrand - Great Performances Ruined by Historical Fiction

I was interested in seeing Firebrand, as I'm a fan of both Alicia Vikander & Jude Law who were terrific in the lead roles of Queen Catherine Parr and her third husband, King Henry VII. Most of the movie was quite good, until about the last 20 minutes, which goes way, way off the rails.

Catherine Parr was a well-educated, twice-widowed young woman who caught Henry's eye after he'd executed his fifth wife, Catherine Howard for adultery. When Henry pulled England out of the Roman Catholic Church (after the Pope had refused to annul his marriage to his first wife), his new Church of England was basically "Roman Catholic Lite" and not particularly Protestant. But Catherine leaned, mostly quietly, towards being a Protestant. WHen Henry asked her to be his wife, Catherine married him.

I know movies about historic figures are often not at all accurate. This one was very frustrating as it was careful with things like costuming, music, lighting and messy facts around religion in most of the movie. I couldn't quite understand how this movie could only have a 6.5 in IMDB ratings until the movie started to diverge from the facts.

[[spoilers]]

While there was a warrant for Catherine Parr's arrest for heresy, it got lost in the shuffle of papers and she was never arrested, never imprisoned, and certainly never had to prepare to be executed. But certainly she feared she might be arrested on heresy as an old acquaintance of hers, Anne Askew, had already been executed for heresy.

Catherine was kept away from Henry while he lay dying. So the scene with Catherine at Henry's deathbed, breaking his neck (I kid you not) was complete fiction.

[[spoilers]]

Two minor complaints about casting - it looks like they based the casting of Prince Edward on a famous Holbein painting of him when he was a chubby toddler. But by his early childhood, he was somewhat sickly and serious (he died at 16 probably of TB). And Princess Elizabeth was cast as a bit old, she was closer to 13 in 1546 when most of the movie was set.

So Firebrand could have been a stronger movie except that it was ruined by historic fantasy.

Movie Review: The Dead Don't Hurt (Directed, Written, & Music Composed by Viggo Mortensen, Who Also Co-Stars)

I really don't like Westerns. A few exceptions:

• The old TV show The Riflemen starring Chuck Connors.
• The Emigrants and The New Land (early '70s), a pair of movies starring Max von Sydow & Liv Ullman as a Swedish family who settle in Minnesota in 1850.
• Heartland (1978), starring Conchata Ferrell and Rip Taylor, about a widow who goes west to manage a household for a taciturn farmer in Wyoming.
• The Unforgiven (1992), starring Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman and Morgan Freeman (directed by Eastwood) except that the violence was extreme.

These Westerns focus more on families.

The same is true of Viggo Mortensen's second movie as a writer/director, The Dead Don't Hurt. While it is violent in places, the focus is on the family.

This movie stars Vicky Krieps (Vivienne), Solly McLeod (Weston), Danny Huston (Mayor Schiller), & Viggo (Olsen). The movie is loaded with immigrants from Europe - Olsen is Danish. Vivienne is French via Canada.

The Dead Don't Hurt starts very quietly. A woman, Vivienne dies, a man, Olsen, holding her hand. At about the same time, there is a shooting spree & a person is accused of the murders, tried, convicted & hung. Olsen lives nearby & seems wary about the verdict but doesn't say anything.

The movie jumps around and goes back in time to the childhood of Vivienne. She grew up in a cabin in Canada; her family don’t like the English. Her father disappears; the audience knows he'd been captured and executed by the English. The little girl Vivienne grows up to be a young woman in San Francisco. She’s with an upper class twit type but sees a man who introduces himself as Olsen. They chat & find out they’re both immigrants. They rapidly hook up. She goes off with Olsen into the wild. It turns out she can shoot, a useful skill in the wild. There’s a funny scene about how to have sex in the wild while wearing layers of clothes from the 1860s. After a few days in the wild, they arrive at property Olsen had leased. It’s in the mountains in a desert-like area & it includes a delapidated cabin and no garden.

The movie jumps between the "present," as Vivienne adjusts to living in the middle of nowhere, and the future, a trip Olsen takes after her death. The scenes in the town can be violent—-mostly due to Weston, the man who actually did the shooting spree near the beginning of the movie. He does every ugly, violent thing you can imagine. Some of the violence happens when Olsen has gone off to fight in the Civil War so Vivienne needs to handle things for herself.

The photography throughout is lovely; Marcel Zyskind is a Danish cinemetographer who captures the "splendid isolation" of so much of the West.

The production design is all very raw and western. One minor issue - western buildings at that time (1860-1865 for the most part) were a big mix of old and new construction, but almost everything in this movie looks old.

The music sounds like it was all played on old instruments evoking the feel of the place where the action is taking place--mostly old fiddles & a piano. Viggo also wrote the music & it works very well. Using old instruments like this was a good effect in two of John Hillcoat's movies - his western The Proposition and his dystopic The Road in which Viggo starred. Nick Cave & Warren Ellis wrote the music for the two Hlllcoat movies.

The movie was mostly shot in Mexico, with a few scenes shot in Canada.

I enjoyed this movie very much. The performances are all excellent, and the script works, though I have some quibbles around the climax.

Gender Assigned at Birth

I remember learning about trans people in the late 1960s in Time and/or Life magazine.  It made me think that they were talking about me.  After all, I was a loud, large, competitive, argumentative girl who loved reading and chemistry sets.  Within about a minute, I realized no, there was no reason those characteristics shouldn't describe a girl.  My issues over gender were never about the biological parts, they were over how SOCIETY dictated girls and boys should present themselves.  Particularly through the '60s, society obsessively pushed girls towards marriage and motherhood, and men towards careers with much less involvement in their children's lives.

In college, I fell in love with a smart guy who was funny but generally quieter and less assertive then I was.  Over time, he's become more gregarious and more assertive.  He's also a much better cook than I, something he enjoys flaunting now as he's retired and has more time to cook.

We raised our daughter to let her know she could do whatever she wanted to do so long as she went to school.  Like us, she gravitated to computer work and is an avid online gamer (with a gender-neutral name online).

I have mixed feeling about the very technical term "gender dysphoria," as it sounds too much like an illness. Given the extremely complicated issues around gender and genes for some people, it's not an illness but it is a difference.  With a small percentage of babies, it's impossible to immediately assign a gender at birth.  Instead of only having female and male on birth certificates (and many other forms we fill throughout our lives), there should be at least a third choice.  "Other" isn't the best name for this.  "Intersex" is accurate for some infants where the sex cannot be immediately observed. But many intersex children eventually do adopt one gender or the other seeing as our culture is so rigidly defined by two genders?

We do we have to have two genders?  This notion has really upset a very loud minority, especially in the south.  Many people in the south have always been rigidly attached to old ideas.

If people want to adopt their own genders, why not?  I know "they" is becoming more common as a pronoun, but it mostly seems to be used by people assigned female at birth.  In some ways, I should adopt "they" as my pronoun as I believe we over emphasize gender.  There is way too much fussing over it.  BUT, I don't want to see "she" become invisible either.

It probably would be better to worry about gender less often.

Adventures in Customer DisService

Spent most of today beating my head against a wall over bad user interfaces online.

Allegheny County Real Estate - their database on properties, assessments and taxes is very good and easy to figure out. But if you want to actually talk to anyone, you're screwed. Went to different phone numbers, and the first real estate number I reached said that the person hadn't been in since April 5 and no you could not leave a message. Really helpful. On a fairly random page, I found the phone number that should've pointed me in the right direction. But no one answered and there was no way to leave a message.

Yes, I know that agencies/companies really don't want to talk to customers. And this would be OK if they had a lot of useful information online that was searchable. These days, they just add "AI" to the end of a search as if they were really using Artificial Intelligence. The two "AIs" I've used recently (Meta AI on Facebook and the one on Ancestry.com that writes your life story based on genealogical facts a few weeks ago) were worse than the existing search and, Meta AI chats endlessly to you. AncestryAI can't figure out the difference between facts and errors. At least you can turn Meta AI off if you want and AncestryAI is optional.

So on the Real Estate questions I had, I had to open an account in order to send them a question. Also documented the many problems I had just getting that far. [[A month later - I still haven't heard back from them.]]

Next issue - my bank. Again, no real search online, but also no claim that AI was available. Found a number labelled CONTACT, used it...and, within a minute, had suspended access to my account because it said I gave them the wrong info. Tried again but pressed 0 right away. Got a nice guy and we chatted about my frustration. It turned out there was another page of phone numbers beyond the CONTACT Robot (and it sounded like he was getting a lot of complaints about that). But he answered my question and removed my suspension from my account. Two problems solved reasonably quickly!

I've used Quicken for nearly 35 years, mostly because I hated mailing out checks and wanted a record of where our money went. It's pretty easy to attach banks and other financial institutions to Quicken...except for the company that holds Jim's 401k. I went to their Website and found info about attaching the 401k account to Quicken. But following their instructions did not work. I called one person and made the mistake of calling the account an IRA account. That took me around in circles for a while with a guy who insisted they knew nothing about Quicken. Tried again and got a person attached to 401ks. He, too, knew nothing about Quicken. I was extremely unhappy and sad I could not hang up on him as definitely as we could back in the old phone days. For this one account only, I have to manually update the amount in the 401k in Quicken every few weeks.

Yes, first world problems. But computers and the online world have been available for over nearly 40 years now. Why can't online customer service improve????

Why Can't Death Certificates Be "Partially Completed" Before We Die?

 I was reading Shaina Feinberg & Julia Rothman's excellent New York Times article "I Asked My Mom if She Was Prepared to Die."  It had a lot of practical information on "getting ready for death," like making sure your financial accounts have other signatories, and reminding the survivors to order more death certificates than they think they'll need.  Yes, you will need more than 10, trust me.

 Which made me wonder - why can't we complete our death certificates with all that family information in advance?  Granted, we don't know when or how we'll die, but most of us know our family information better than our significant other might.

A few years ago, after our father died, my brother completed the death certificate.  Except...he listed the wrong state for where our grandmother was born.  This error, though minor, will drive future genealogists nuts.  I actually added a note to my Ancestry.com record for our father saying that his death certificate had this error.

Many decades ago, after my husband's grandfather died, his grandmother listed the wrong country for his birth.  He was born in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire, she listed his country of birth as Germany, since he came over speaking German when he was a boy.  I added the same note to my grand-father-in-law's Ancestry record - wrong country on death certificate.

The notion of filling out a death certificate in advance may seem macabre but we all will need one some day. Collecting this information, which is later certified by a doctor or funeral home after death with information around a death, should be reasonably trivial due to the World Wide Web.  Each state can set up the appropriate online death certificate online. I believe every state has a different death certificate format. Each person could set up a death certificate account for the state in which they live, fill it out with the accurate info while they're alive, and tell their next-of-kin that they have such an account and how to access it.

And even if this information can't be immediately imported into an actual death certificate, when the doctor/funeral home goes to complete it, they could have all the accurate information for that person readily available. 

I tried to find out what a current state of Pennsylvania death certificate looks like.  I could not find one at the Pennsylvania records Web site.  I've seen recent Florida and Massachusetts death certificates, and many old death certificates as part of doing genealogical research. I understand the reluctance to not display an entire current death certificate online (fraud) but why not display the portions that could be completed before death?

Let's use the Web for some useful record-keeping for survivors' families by letting people partially complete the "life" part of their death certificate while they're still with us.  It'll save their next-of-kin hassle when they have to complete someone else's death certificate.

Body Breakdown...

 

Well, as we get older and our bodies break down, things happen we don't expect.

I've been a fat person most of my life, and took up walking seriously about 10 years ago. While it didn't really help me lose weight, I wasn't gaining weight, my back improved dramatically, and it gave me a lot more confidence about what I could do. I walked 16 miles in a day on two different days in 2015, and at least 10 miles a day a few dozen times over the years. My average was 4-5 miles a day over 10 years.

 

The last few years, I've not had the energy to walk as much as I'd like. My legs hurt or just felt funny. 

 

The first few times this happened, it seemed to be due to being on statins for a long time. I was on statins for 11 years without any side effects, and then started taking statin breaks. After a few weeks, I'd start feeling better and I could increase my walking. But then my cholesterol would zoom back up again so I'd go back on statins.

 

Yes, I have improved my eating habits. But that's no enough.

 

Anyway, last year when I took a statin break, it took 4 months before I started feeling better, which was weird. I also had very severe pain in my legs at night a few times. My old doctor sent me for some testing (including a nerve conduction test, yuck). Everything came back normal. 

 

I felt better in September and October, got a new doctor, and went on a statin-like drug (Xetia) which is supposed to not have the side effects that statins have. But within a few weeks, I was having trouble with my legs again. At Boskone, I could not keep up with a group walking a few blocks away for dinner one night and I had leg pain all weekend long.

 

After dithering, I went back to my new doctor, complaining about the problems I was having. She wanted me to have another nerve conduction test which I resisted since the one last year added up to nothing. But she told me to get a spinal X-ray and a bunch of blood tests. And then she said she didn't think I was having side effects from the drug, she thought I might have spinal stenosis.

 

Got my blood test and my X-ray. X-ray confirmed spinal stenosis. It basically means some nerves to other parts of my body are getting compressed by the vertebra. It's degenerative, but for severe cases (and mine is just mild), sometimes they do surgery. A hallmark of this condition appears to be back pain, which I haven't had; so far it's mostly been leg pain. All the blood tests came back fine, so the constant fatigue seems a little odd - my sleeping has generally improved over the last 2 years.

 

This is a very odd condition, because some days I feel pretty good. But just 2 nights ago, I had pain bad enough I couldn't get out of my chair to get aspirin, I had to ask Jim to get it for me.

 

Just 5 years ago, we hiked for 3 days on the Dingle Penninsula. I'd hoped I could still do hiking like that, but since the fall, I've been having trouble standing for 2 hours of volunteer work.

 

The good news is, we have excellent insurance and a house where I can mostly avoid stairs. But I would rather spend our retirement money on travel than on rehab.

 

Today I'll be calling the physical therapy folks at the nearby hospital to set up some PT sessions.